


Tale of the Champion: Forward to the 20th Anniversary Edition

by Sour_Idealist



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Future Fic, Gen, Tale of the Champion, Varric Has Feelings, fake media
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-01-11
Packaged: 2019-03-03 08:48:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13337661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sour_Idealist/pseuds/Sour_Idealist
Summary: Announcing the 20th Anniversary Edition of the acclaimed Tale of the Champion, with a new forward by the author!





	Tale of the Champion: Forward to the 20th Anniversary Edition

Stories change when you’re not paying attention to them. Even after they’re written.

When I wrote this, I had just left my best friend in all of Thedas fleeing the templars on the coast of the Waking Sea. I’d watched her kill a man who I drank with every week for almost eight years. I had watched my hometown burn. I had seen drinking buddies die on each others’ swords – I had shot some of them – and I’d watched my friends go their separate ways at the city gates and thought I’d never see any of them ever again. And I wouldn’t have put two coppers on Hawke living out the month.

If you’ve already read the book, then you probably knew all that. But I want to remind you of it. If I’d sat down to write _Tale of the Champion_ because I thought it would make me rich, it would’ve been the smartest business choice I ever made, but the truth is, I didn’t even plan on selling it. I just wanted to get the ghosts out of my head.

When I published it, I thought it was Hawke’s story. You know, hence the title. People were blaming her for every damn thing and the rain, that year, and I couldn’t stand it. I was going to punch someone out, and it wouldn’t even be the poor bastard’s fault. Everyone was talking about her like she was a monster and a lunatic, and there I was mourning my friend, who was one of the bravest, funniest, most caring people I’ve ever had the pleasure to know. (Not the cleverest, though. Not even close. Sorry, Hawke.)  I wanted people to know what she really was; what a treasure we had all lost. And I thought I’d already done all the most important things I’d ever do, and seen the world change up close more than I’d ever wanted, and all that was left was to put it to paper.

Well, that didn’t last. It turns out Hawke wasn’t lost after all; she’s in the next room as I write this, drinking my best wine. I got dragged south by the Right Hand of three Divines and saw a living saint walk out of the Fade, and I helped her kill a darkspawn monster older than my city. For the second time, even. I watched Inquisitor Adaar declare the rulers of south Thedas, and I met and eulogized Warden Loghain, a man I grew up hearing about in songs. And after all that they made me Viscount of Kirkwall. So much for having nothing left to do but write it down. I guess there’s always another chapter.

Maybe the version of _Tale of the Champion_ I wrote was Hawke’s story, but that’s not how I think of it, not anymore. (Again, sorry, Hawke.) Her story went on a lot longer than that too, and she’s promised to skin me alive if I try telling the rest of it. But don’t worry, loyal readers – I don’t know about a happy ending, but I can say there’s been a pretty good stretch of the middle so far. Unless I just jinxed it.

Some people say it’s really my story, but I think that’s bullshit. For one thing, I’m not _that_ egotistical. For another, I’m a really bad hero. Heroes learn and change, but I just got older. And what did I learn? That other people have problems worse than mine, and sometimes that breaks them and sometimes they rise. That everything ends, so enjoy it. I don’t call that very heroic; do you?

Some people say it’s the story of the mage rebellion, but I don’t think that’s true either. If you put a kettle of water over a fire and weld the lid shut, then the story of the weak spot in the metal isn’t the story of the explosion. The rebellion was a lot bigger than any of us, even if we were there for the breaking point, because if it didn’t happen here then it would have been somewhere else. And it’s not done, either. They’re still writing the next chapters in the Southern Circles and the College, and I never could have come up with that mess.

Some people say it’s the story of Kirkwall, which I thought was pretty stupid the first time I heard it. Kirkwall’s outlived us all a hundred times over, and Maker willing, it’ll be here long after we’re dead. But, you know, I can see the argument now. Maybe there is something in the book about what it was like here all those years, with all that fear and anger boiling away. A lot of people hate this city, and Maker knows it’s been a shithole, but it’s where I grew up and where I want to be buried, and I want to see it thrive. I never bought into returning to the Stone, but sometimes, living here, I understand a little of the whole idea.

Really, though, I think the story is smaller than that. At least the way I’d tell it now, it’s pretty small. I bet I can do it in a paragraph.

Once upon a time, the world seemed like it was falling apart, and in it there were seven people. There was a witty refugee apostate, a handsome author, an angry kid with a sword, a runaway slave with a temper, a guardswoman with a conscience, a pirate with a secret, a Keeper’s apprentice with a mission, and a spirit-ridden man with a cause and too little else. We met up in the worst parts of a city full of grief, and we hated each other and we loved each other. We fought each other, and we fought _for_ each other, and we hurt each other, and for a little while, we made each other happy.

There you go. That’s the important part. But you can still read the rest of the book if you want. I did work hard on it, and, hey, the new edition has some of the incriminating details put back in. It’s good to be a viscount.

(I put some of the funniest parts back in too. Again, sorry, Hawke.)

Enjoy the 20th Anniversary Edition.


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